Consultant's Postscript: Observations and Reflections

Introduction

As part of this project, I have been invited to present my ideas and observations on the Positive Strategies for Managing Change project and on change in general. These ideas, while not totally separate from what makes up the other sections of this report, are different. Consultants, as a rule, are not asked to "go off record." Typically, consultants are brought into an organization to help solve a problem, whether the problem is facilitating a workshop, troubleshooting a computer networking interruption or stuffing envelopes and licking stamps.

Therefore, being given the freedom to express my views in this kind of forum is both rewarding and a bit intimidating. It is rewarding because it allows me to take off my more objective (and arguably less interesting) report-writing hat and put on a less restrictive (and arguably more interesting) observation-writing hat.

At the same time, however, it is intimidating because in so doing I am writing about an area in which I have not recently completed a post-doctoral fellowship. Indeed, my observations and comments, and the model that follows, merely represent my take on organizational change and its impact on the individual.

I vindicate (and placate) myself with the argument that I have experienced many different personal and work-related changes, within organizations as well as within my own small consulting company. What's worse, I seem to have a penchant for change, one that has bode me well in some situations and which has landed me in small- to medium-sized quagmires (small piece of advice: don't buy a house, start a family and start a business in the same year).

Moreover, as a consultant who works almost exclusively with the not-for-profit sector, I have had the opportunity to observe the effects of change on numerous public and not-for- profit organizations. And as is the case with any report, by proclaiming my limitations, I am therefore qualified to present my ideas.

In preparing this section of the report, I realized that my comments and the accompanying model are based on a number of assumptions that I have made and which should be highlighted:

1. First, as stated above, my views are based from the perspective of an individual experiencing change within an organization. The majority of the literature that I consulted for this particular project address change from the management perspective, i.e., how to manage people who are experiencing change.
2. Further, this model assumes that the changes are being initiated outside the organization and are not the same as evolutionary, organizational growth changes.